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birlcholtz · 4 years

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any bittyholtz headcanons👀

holster knows he’s big ok? and he realizes pretty quick his sophomore year that bitty is Not Great at handling large guys coming at him quickly. so out of consideration for this tiny frosh, who is cute but holster can also tell is scared shitless by ransom and holster being their loud selves, holster tries to be conscious of bitty and respect his space (and also not yell too much around him because who knows what specifically bothers him)

and the great thing about ransom and holster being best bros for so long is that holster doesn’t have to explain what he’s doing to ransom, ransom just kind of matches him and that’s that

and holster is delighted every time bitty opens up a bit more and relaxes a bit more around the team, and when he comes out to ransom and holster holster internally is like oh. oh of COURSE. of course big loud jocks who talk about hooking up with women all the time and check people really hard on the ice bother him. duh holster

but holster would NEVER hurt someone for being gay that’s a huge asshole move and he feels it is Very Important That Bitty Knows That Holster Would Never Hurt Him. why does he feel it’s so important?? that’s a question for later holster isn’t a whole ‘analyze my feelings’ dude

so holster actively makes an effort to be around bitty in a non-threatening way. by a couple of months into spring semester they’re very comfortable around each other, comfortable enough that bitty jokes about their size difference and at one point he literally jumps into holster’s arms (who catches him on instinct) and then holster is like oh my god i’m holding bitty. oh my god he’s so small but so muscular. oh my god his hair smells so nice oh god oh fUCK

there is literally so much more under the cut. (send me ur headcanons for rarepairs/qpps!)

bitty, for his part, was initially very wary of ransom and holster for exactly the reasons holster figured out. it also doesn’t help that ransom dresses like a preppy frat bro and holster dresses like a messy frat bro. they’re both frat bros and bitty takes a long time to warm up to them.

but what does help is the way holster always lets bitty know he’s there before he gets too close (sometimes bitty is in the zone in the kitchen and doesn’t notice things like his teammates entering), and the way he doesn’t friendly-punch bitty like he does ransom. or jack. or shitty. or even lardo honestly nobody’s safe. except bitty is.

holster is also definitely responsible for putting some of bitty’s favorite songs on the kegster playlist and bitty definitely finds out and his heart warms a little more

and once bitty’s come out to ransom and holster and they don’t treat him any differently or weirdly and still profess their love for him when he bakes things without a single no homo, bitty finds himself hanging around with them a little more?

ransom likes to study in the attic without distractions so that means that bitty and holster wind up spending a lot more time together and listen. bitty can’t spend that much time with holster without noticing that the guy is a) extremely tall b) ripped and c) has an excellent jawline. and bitty is only human y’all

when he plays music in the kitchen holster will always dance (and sing along if he knows the words, or enough of the words to get them wrong in a funny way because bitty’s laugh sounds like angels singing and okay yeah holster is smitten)

holster Cannot make pies because he cannot touch pastry, bitty forbids him from trying before he even asks because his hands are too warm and he’ll fuck it all up. (holster, internally, is pleased bitty’s noticed. bitty, internally, is like fuck was that too weird) BUT if holster is in there he usually gets dragged into stirring things or chopping things or handing bitty sticks of butter from the fridge and basically whatever he can do without fucking up the pastry

and a while after that holster is like hang on wait it’s been a while since i realized i had a crush on bitty and it has Not gone away should i like. i don’t know. fucking tell him i’m into guys or something like that?? that would be smart

this is more how they get together than a list of headcanons LMAO i always get distracted and this is so fucking long omg

so he’s like rans. how do i do this. and ransom is like you should blast gettin’ bi from crazy ex girlfriend and holster is like weird. i love it.

other things holster does to subtly let bitty know he’s bi: loudly discuss his plans for going to pride that summer, make a lot of bi puns and hope one of them lands, show bitty funny posts from the lgbtq+ samwell student group on facebook

eventually bitty is like . hm. holster is either a VERY supportive ally. or he is trying to tell me something. and after the 80th bi meme post from the facebook group he’s like holster. hon. are you trying to tell me something

and holster is like YES. I AM BISEXUAL and bitty’s like oh that’s great!! (internally: can i climb him like a tree yet)

and then bitty’s like well thanks for telling me! and holster is like uh yeah! (because listen he’s good at wheeling but he is SO bad at wheeling bitty because this isn’t just someone cute he found at a kegster u know??? it’s BITTY and holster kind of wants to sweep him off his feet but in like. a gentlemanly way that won’t scare him)

when holster relates this interaction to ransom ransom is like oh my fucking god holster you could have told him and holster is like yeah and i did not for some fucking reason???????? ransom. i’m dumb and ransom is like no you just caught feelings

(bitty, to shitty: hey so uh. if a guy aggressively hints he’s into guys for like. a month. and then when i ask him straight out he tells me he’s bi. what does that mean. and shitty’s like i mean i wouldn’t know unless i know the guy?? but i wouldn’t ask u to tell me bc like. hes gotta choose who he’s out to u know and bitty’s like yeah i mean u know him but maybe i’ll ask him who else he’s out to bc i need some advice and shitty is like hell yeah)

the next day, bitty’s like holster are u out to anyone else?? just bc the team seems kinda. hetero. except for me. and holster is like oh yeah rans knows and shitty knows. also johnson. and jack if he’s not stupid because i’ve definitely had guys stay over. but mostly just the guys in the haus yeah

then they go to murder stop ‘n shop and buy baking ingredients. holster carries a metric fuck ton of flour and butter and pretends he doesn’t notice bitty staring at his arms (but he might flex just a little more than necessary)

so bitty’s like EXCELLENT. and then he talks to shitty again and is like IT’S HOLSTER AND I’M SUPER INTO HIM WHAT DO I DO and shitty’s like hooooo boy. and then HE’S like well uh. holster doesn’t like. feel the need to formally come out to people usually like the way he told me was by just telling me about a guy he hooked up with last year with zero context or warning? like i don’t know holster as well as, like, rans, but he definitely wants you specifically to know that he’s bi.

and bitty’s like intriguing. i’m gonna go combust now. and shitty’s like cool catch ya later.

so then bitty decides there’s only one way to find out if holster’s into him. and it’s not asking him, what the fuck?? no obviously not. it’s wearing very short shorts and touching him a lot and watching him to see if he blushes or gets flustered. bitty may not be a blunt or forthright person when it comes to hitting on people but he can at least make it impossible for holster to try and hide any feelings he may or may not have.

so rip holster is what i’m saying. but he also observes how much bitty is still watching him-- usually when bitty is doing something like wearing very short shorts or dancing at a kegster or flinging himself into holster’s lap-- and he’s like HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. because also holster is like way more experienced with like. relationships in general? like he’s familiar with what someone flirting with him looks like. so he’s like alright well if bitty wants to make me suffer i’m going to make him suffer too. (’rans can i borrow your skinny jeans’ ‘is this so you can get back at bitty’ ‘yes it’s important’ ‘yeah sure whatever’)

holster knows he’s jacked, he just has to make sure bitty knows it. he also knows that bitty is comfortable with holster standing pretty close to him now so he’s going to use that to his advantage since holster is also tall as Fuck. (obviously he doesn’t do anything creepy like stand right behind him or smth but like. if they’re talking. holster is gonna get just a little in bitty’s space just so bitty has to look up at him a little. is this partially because bitty has really nice eyelashes? yeah)

basically what i’m saying is once holster decides to get back at bitty all hell breaks loose. literally nobody else in the haus can deal with the sexual tension when they’re in the same room. bitty is now pretty sure that holster is into him. shitty texts bitty saying ‘can you please bone for the love of god’. for good measure shitty also texts holster saying the same thing. he’s so tired but also this is hilarious

like it gets EXTRA. bitty and holster can both bend and snap and they DO. holster intentionally spills water on his t-shirt to make it cling more. when he sits at the kitchen table doing work bitty comes by and leans over his shoulder to see what he’s doing and if he brushes holster’s neck a little as he does it, well, that’s between them. at one point holster and bitty are both standing at the counter washing dishes and holster starts chirping bitty about not being able to reach the top shelf and asks if he wants to stand on a chair and bitty’s like hmm or you could just carry me. and holster almost has a conniption and it gets even worse when they finish washing up and bitty’s like oh great the counter’s all cleared off! and hops up and sits on it and that gets his face a little closer, vertically, to holster, who is suddenly aware that bitty is wearing very short shorts AGAIN, which like, seem to have become his uniform, and that when bitty sits like that holster can barely see those shorts, that’s how tiny they are, and it looks like bitty’s just sitting there in a shirt and nothing else and holster’s brain supplies a LOT of images once he thinks of that and hoo boy.

and holster’s like how can i get back at him. and bitty’s sitting right next to the hanging cabinets so holster grabs some of the plates from the drying rack that look dry enough and goes and stands *right* in front of bitty. like he’s not actually brushing bitty’s legs where they dangle off the counter but if he stepped forward like. half an inch. he would be. and they make eye contact for a second and then, without moving, holster starts putting plates away.

and bitty is like oh my fucking god WHAT else do i have to do (he doesn’t say this out loud) and then when holster’s done putting away the plates and it looks like he’s going to go grab more bitty just. wraps his legs around holster’s waist and pulls him in (and holster is like holy FUCK because he knew bitty’s legs were strong but not THAT STRONG HOLY SHIT) and at this point there’s really nothing else for them to do but make out at the kitchen counter and that’s what they do. (bitty does, in fact, climb that man like a tree)

okay so some actual headcanons lol. you thought you knew bitty was a clothes stealing fiend?? you were wrong. he absolutely is but you just didn’t know how much. does holster still have literally any of his sweatshirts? probably not honestly

the only way bitty will sit on the green couch will be if holster is sitting on the green couch and bitty is sitting in his lap because that way he can avoid any actual contact with the couch

when bitty makes anything with blueberries in it holster steals some but he also feeds bitty some because he’s mushy like that

they continue to go to extreme lengths to try and get each other flustered in public. shitty is so tired.

they share playlists constantly and even more of bitty’s favorites find their way onto the kegster playlist

when bitty moves into the haus holster is in his room c o n s t a n t l y. he just likes the space ok??? there’s lil reminders of bitty everywhere and of course if bitty is there too then that’s just the BEST

the puck bunny halloween costume physically murders adam birkholtz

#bittyholtz #fun with rarepairs #omgcp

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whenitsdarkweilluminate · 3 years

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Oslo 2010 – Semi-Final 1

Host: Norway Slogan: “Share the Moment” Participants: 39 Voting method: 12-point system (50/50 system - combined) Format: 2 Semi-Finals / Grand Final = the top 10 of semi 1 & 2 + the Big 4 + host General Overview: The 2010s decade of Eurovision opens in Oslo; which means a return of Nordic humour! The three presenters are Erik Solbakken, Haddy N'jie and Nadia Hasnaoui, who interject some comedic comments throughout the night. They're also professional in their approach. This trio seems likeable so far. In contrast to previous years, there are no opening acts in the semi finals in 2010. The show begins with a brief video montage and the hosts welcoming the audience, but otherwise we jump right into it! One of the intermission segments involves numerous crowds screaming at cameras, which got annoying and went on too long. The main interval act (“Human Sounds”) is odd and quirky, however. It's basically a series of clips showcasing people creating sounds with their bodies. It concludes with an opera singer shattering an audience member's wine glass lol. The 2010 contest sees Andorra, Czechia, Hungary and Montenegro depart, while Austria and San Marino extend their absences. The only returning country is Georgia following last year's suspension. As a consequence, the number of participating countries is reduced to 39; the lowest since 2006. This was partly due to the global financial crisis of the time. Andorra has yet to return (as of 2020), while the rest will reappear sometime this decade. Starting in 2010, the 50/50 system is implemented for the semi-finals, and not just the Grand Final. Subsequently, this year the juries prevented Finland, Lithuania and (ironically) Sweden from qualifying. Bosnia, Israel and Ireland took their places. The are a few notable disparities between the televote and the jury vote in SF1. For example, the jury-heavy songs include Portugal and Bosnia, while the televote-heavy songs include Greece, Iceland and Russia. Belgium also won the overall jury vote by a wide margin. On the flip side, both metrics ranked Latvia in last place. Another important rule change occurred in 2010. For the first time ever, the viewers could vote during the performances, with the phone lines opening at the start of the show. This will be the case in 2011 as well, until the EBU reverts to the standard 15-minute window in 2012. I assume this change was intended to alleviate the disadvantage of the early running order slots. Quality-wise, this is a remarkably weak semi-final. It's filled with bland and bizarre entries. Indeed, my 9th and 10th qualifiers were chosen by default. Interestingly, nothing from SF1 lands in the eventual top 5, and only two of them are in the top 10. Still, this semi has some classics and fan-favourites. ✓ Moldova: SunStroke Project and Olia Tira - Run Away So the first Eurovision performance of the 2010s is... an Internet meme! (it features “Epic Sax Guy”). Considering that meme culture will largely define this decade, it's a perfect introduction. “Run Away” is campiness done right, without being cringe or pretentious. Mostly because the artists deliver the appropriate energy on stage. Moreover, the performance is immediately eye-catching, thanks to the clothing choices, the excessive eye make-up, the spinning dude with a neon violin, and of course the hip-thrusting saxophonist. The visuals also establish a party night aesthetic. As for the song, “Run Away” utilizes a wonky chorus structure that involves abrupt pauses and blast-offs, supported by a jittery violin and a pulsating motorized synth. It's turbulent but catchy. It's also an escape/release of the anxious claustrophobia expressed in the lyrics. The song breathes melodrama and panic. Elsewhere, the sax riff adds another quirky component to the mix, and the dance/club production is very 2010. In conclusion, “Run Away” is what a novelty entry should be. Strangely, it only finished at 22nd, although SunStroke Project will get a top 3 placing later... ✓ Russia: Peter Nalitch and Friends - Lost and Forgotten “Lost and Forgotten” is a satirical parody of depressing and mopey break-up ballads. Accordingly, the arrangement exaggerates its dreary nature, as the narrator feels ignored by his love interest. The mood is completed by falling snow on stage, and by the band wearing winter clothes. But the pivotal joke happens after the “I'm looking at your photo” line. The lead singer literally pulls out a hand-drawn sketch of his ex. He stares at the photo heartbroken, while a band mate tells him to burn it. It's soooo stupid that it's ironically amusing. Otherwise the melody drags too much, the vocal style is unattractive, and the “wooooo”'s are silly, but the chorus is passable. The folk genre makes it sound better. × Estonia: Malcolm Lincoln - Siren Is this three joke entries in a row? The Baltic countries love to send these eccentric/trolling entries, but most of the time I do not understand the appeal, and “Siren” is no exception. The staging is beyond bizarre. The pianist is so extra, the spinning camera makes me nauseous, and the dorky dance moves aren't endearing. One of the backing singers collapses at the end too. It just seems “try-hard” to me. Furthermore, the song is extremely dull. The piano-lead verses are too minimalist. The pacing does pick up in the chorus, but that chorus goes absolutely nowhere. It perks up, then resorts to a monotonous rut. Which does capture the theme of feeling stuck in life. But it's aurally unsatisfying. × Slovakia: Kristina - Horehronie How is this a DNQ? “Horehronie” is easily Slovakia's best Eurovision entry, although that's not saying much. The wood-clanging percussion beat is both inventive and addictive. The stomping rhythm really drives the song and keeps the energy afloat. And it illustrates the sounds of the Slovakian forests (which cover 40% of the country, apparently). The title “Horehronie” refers to a popular tourist region there. Kristina views this place as her sanctuary, where she finds peace by connecting with nature. The lyrics, the wooden beat, and the plant-based outfits combine to create that nature imagery. I like the green aesthetic. The pan flutes and the chanting lady are nice additions too. That said, the song becomes monotonous before it's over. × Finland: Kuunkuiskaajat - Työlki ellää Another Ethnic-influenced entry that should have qualified. Finland even reached 6th place in the televote, but the juries tanked it. “Työlki ellää” is just so innocent and jubilant. The song is a folk music jamboree with a bouncy melody, and it encompasses the accordion, the fiddle, and well-timed hand claps. There's also a whirlwind of tempo shifts. The decelerations and accelerations are gimmicky, though, and they're my least favourite aspect. Still, “Työlki ellää” is a fun song. The ensemble delivers radiant energy on stage and spry dance moves. The luminous white outfits complement the vibe. And it feels nostalgic in a way. Lyrically, the song analyzes the songwriting process, the origins of inspiration, and how playing music is a livelihood. × Latvia: Aisha - What For? Latvia's list of existential frustrations finishes in dead last. Likewise, Finland 2005 and Cyprus 2006 also DNQ'ed when they attempted this theme. My theory is that Eurovision is a form of escapism and viewers aren't interested in facing such heavy subject matter. Indeed, “What For?” conveys a weighty, gut-wrenching tone, where Aisha is despondent by the lack of answers to life's deep questions. For example: what is the purpose of death and suffering. But some of the words are too shallow (ie. “Why are the skies so blue and mountains high?”) or too silly (“But [God's] phone today is out of range”). Oh, and Aisha's vocals are unpleasantly tone deaf in the verses. Yikes. On the positive side, the chorus is salvageable thanks to the sloshing production and the escalations of the “what for”s. ✓ Serbia: Milan Stanković - Ovo je Balkan Bop! “Ovo je Balkan” is so catchy and upbeat. The song involves an addictive beat, a perky bounce, and a flurry of horns that sound characteristically Balkan. It also utilizes repetition and stutters cleverly. Namely the “heeeee-e-e-e-ey” bit, the numerous “Ljubica”s, and the “Balkan Balkan Balkan / hop hop hop” section. The latter is also distorted like a radio broadcast. Milan meanwhile supplies flirtatious charm and a bright smile. He has natural charisma. As for the staging, it fulfills the requirements to be visually complete. For example: the circular walled platforms, the “robotic” female dancers, and Milan's uninhibitedly giddy dance moves. Not sure what I think about the outfits though. All in all, “Ovo je Balkan” is an obvious qualifier. Although the song has a high burn rate. ✓ Bosnia & Herzegovina: Vukašin Brajić - Thunder and Lightning (It's getting exciting). So “Thunder and Lighting” projects a relentlessly, overpowering, “epic”-sounding atmosphere thanks to a dramatic guitar line. It replicates the intensity of a thunderstorm as Vukašin encourages reconciliation with his estranged lover. But there's something underwhelming and basic about this song. I expected more. The structure sticks to a generic template, the instrumentation isn't that dynamic, and the lyrics are cliche. The stage utilizes the smoke machine and flashing lights, though. The dark aesthetic of the 2010 contest suits this one. But overall “Thunder and Lightning” isn't qualification-worthy to me. Ultimately it did qualify, but it was Bosnia's worst result since the relegation era. × Poland: Marcin Mroziński - Legenda What... the... actual... f**k... This is disturbing. Poland obviously went for the shock factor with this staging. The atmosphere is bone-chilling too. The backing singers are creepy, between the shrieking, the apple-biting, the haunting harmonies, and the intense facial expressions. And the performance concludes with Marcin “strangling” one of the girls as her shirt gets torn off. To give some context, the song is subverting the common fairy tale tropes, where the princess doesn't want to be “rescued” by the knight. This changes our perspective of the knight's intentions – he is no longer a hero but a predator. While I appreciate the creativity, the visual representation is unsettling. The screaming is annoying. And the song is excessively intense. Still, the chorus employs a “marching through the forest” rhythm that's enjoyable (ie. the “forever ever and ever” bit). ✓ Belgium: Tom Dice - Me and My Guitar “Me and My Guitar” was the huge jury favourite of 2010. It was enough for Belgium to win in SF1, and to be 2 points shy of winning the jury vote at the Grand Final. But the televoters ranked it 14th. The song foreshadows a 2010s trend: the acoustic male ballad. It's the template that Ed Sheeran, Passenger, James Bay, etc. will soon exploit. While this genre is generally not my thing, Tom delivers a heartfelt, honest, and personal performance here. In the song, he describes the lengthy struggle to break into the music industry and feeling pressured to abandon his dream. Appropriately, the only things on stage are Tom and his guitar. The backing track adds some unobtrusive support though. The minimalist approach allows Tom to express fragile vulnerability. He sounds passionate and driven about his goal. And he's a capable live performer. But, the melody is too dull and plain. Although the “maybe I should get a nine to five” hook is alright. Ultimately “Me and My Guitar” broke Belgium's 5-year DNQ streak, and it became their first top 10 since “Sanomi” in 2003. Considering their last three entries were terrible, this is refreshing by comparison. × Malta: Thea Garrett - My Dream Was Chiara not available? This sounds exactly like one of her ballads, minus the compelling vocal climaxes. Oh wait, “My Dream” was written by the same team that wrote Chiara's 1998 entry, no wonder. This is such a bland, indistinct and uninteresting ballad. The only thing of note is when the angel wings appear behind Thea. And even that doesn't excite me. Otherwise, the song tries to be inspirational but it just isn't. The message is written with generic lyrics and the arrangement is ordinary AF. There's just... nothing to care about here. ✓ Albania: Juliana Pasha - It's All About You Well, this sounds noticeably similar to Christina Aguilera's “Keeps Gettin' Better”, but it's a bop nonetheless. The fizzy electro beat channels the “loud” dance-pop hits of the time. There's a fierceness to the buzzing synths, while the jogging rhythm drives the song. Furthermore, the chorus is an adrenaline rush that expresses Juliana's smitten devotion. She even wants to get engaged? (ie. “make a deal and seal it”). The chorus is easily catchy too, thanks to the well-timed echoes from the backing singers. Elsewhere, the flashing purple lights match the energy. The “we've been down...” hook is decent. And the “cool-down” in the bridge sets up the finale. There's also an electric violin solo; which is kind of random. Still, I feel like other entries have more to offer. ✓ Greece: Giorgos Alkaios and Friends - OPA! I understand how some would find this irritating, but I think it's brilliant. “OPA!” is an insanely catchy song that specializes in the call-and-response format. The “hey!” and “opa!” cheers are the obvious hooks. Specifically in how the two sections contrast – the “hey!” lines stop early to allow an instrumental response (which signifies the rising flames mentioned in the lyrics), while the “opa!” lines are more complete. The chorus then concludes on a bounce rhythm. The song's structure is dynamic in other ways too. The vocals intensify midway through the verses as an escalation tactic. There's growls, the four isolated clangs, and the bridge introduces a traditional stringed instrument, followed by a record scratch. Moreover, the instrumentation blends a marching drum rhythm with Greek elements and 2010-era synths that emanate like smoke. There's a lot going on, but it's cohesive. Giorgos also delivers some commanding/intimidating stage presence. Incidentally “OPA!” is the televote winner of SF1, and it extended Greece's top 10 streak. ✓ Portugal: Filipa Azevedo - Há dias assim This is Portugal's last qualification until Salvador. On first impression, “Há dias assim” seemed like a slow and boring ballad that benefited from weak competition, but it placed 4th in the semi-final. That said, the song definitely improves in the second half, when the instrumentation expands beyond the initial piano-ballad structure. The dramatic transitions and the vocal climaxes are the highlights. More specifically, it's the shifts that lead into the later choruses. Filipia also delivers a warm and personable performance. The lyrics, meanwhile, touch on the themes of loneliness and separation. It's not my favourite entry, but it's amongst the 10 best songs of SF1. × F.Y.R. Macedonia: Gjoko Taneski - Jas ja imam silata Yeah, this is the most forgettable entry of SF1. The heavy guitar line and the chorus melody are both agreeable and inoffensive, but “Jas ja imam silata” doesn't leave much of an impression. It's an obvious DNQ. The song channels 1980s rock music though, which is difficult to dislike. There's even an electric guitar solo! In the song, Gjoko basically declares “I'm better off without you”. He serves some attitude as he invalidates the significance of the relationship. He's already moved on. But otherwise, the guest rapper doesn't add much. And the seductive female dancers on stage don't match the theme. I guess that's one way to attract votes. ✓ Belarus: 3+2 feat. Robert Wells - Butterflies “Butterflies” is a strong contender for my least favourite ESC entry of all time. I despise everything about it. Firstly, it's one of the dullest songs in existence. The vocals are so toneless and lethargic – it's excruciating to listen to. Moreover, the melody moves at such a sluggish pace that it's sleep inducing. The song sounds 50-years out of date; completed by a formal stage aesthetic that includes tuxedos, theatre curtains and a grand piano. The main metaphor (“we're like butterflies flying to the sun”) is lame. The song is about opening up and letting love in, but the emotion doesn't take hold. And then the cherry on top: the butterfly wing reveal! Which is one of the cringiest things I've witnessed in this contest. The drums FINALLY enter during this section, but it's too little too late to salvage the song. ✓ Iceland: Hera Björk - Je ne sais quoi The other Icelandic Björk. So “Je ne sais quoi” is this year's fan-favourite flop (there's usually one every year). Despite reaching third in SF1, Iceland floundered at 19th place at the Grand Final. Maybe the staging was too bland, since Hera and the backing singers are mostly stationary throughout the performance. The camera work and the background lights compensate somewhat, though. That said, Germany also had basic staging, so I don't know. As for the song, “Je ne sais quoi” is an encompassing, 2010-style, dance-pop banger. It sounds like a European chart hit from the time, and not too dissimilar from Iceland's 2008 entry, which Hera was actually a backing singer for. The first verse builds up anticipation nicely; whereas the second verse indulges in the motorized synths. The chorus, meanwhile, is an explosion of “brash” euphoric synths that overtakes the arena. It's a killer chorus. Namely in how Hera belts the song title and the ensuing “oh!”s. She's a talented vocalist and a confident performer. But.... I find that Hera's delivery is more a showcase of skill than a showcase of emotion. It makes this entry seem a little “generic”, even if the production and the melodic structure are slick. My Ranking: 01. Greece: Giorgos Alkaios and Friends - OPA! ✓ 02. Moldova: SunStroke Project and Olia Tira - Run Away ✓ 03. Iceland: Hera Björk - Je ne sais quoi ✓ 04. Slovakia: Kristina - Horehronie 05. Serbia: Milan Stanković - Ovo je Balkan ✓ 06. Finland: Kuunkuiskaajat - Työlki ellää 07. Albania: Juliana Pasha - It's All About You ✓ 08. Belgium: Tom Dice - Me and My Guitar ✓ 09. Russia: Peter Nalitch and Friends - Lost and Forgotten ✓ 10. Portugal: Filipa Azevedo - Há dias assim ✓ 11. F.Y.R. Macedonia: Gjoko Taneski - Jas ja imam silata 12. Bosnia & Herzegovina: Vukašin Brajić - Thunder and Lightning ✓ 13. Poland: Marcin Mroziński - Legenda 14. Latvia: Aisha - What For? 15. Malta: Thea Garrett - My Dream 16. Estonia: Malcolm Lincoln - Siren 17. Belarus: 3+2 feat. Robert Wells - Butterflies ✓ What a weak semi-final.

#eurovision #eurovision song contest #eurovision 2010

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vgm-in-irregular-time-of-the-day · 6 years

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DAY 1200) Charge Cycles - No One Cares About the Letter L

Composer: me (Chimeratio)

DAY 1200!!!! To celebrate, posting music to a soundtrack I wrote myself AGAIN of course. As I’ve said before it’s to a quirky puzzle game by my cool friend CHz (who has helped out a ton with this blog! thank you CHz!) You can play it here!: https://chz.itch.io/charge-cycles

As I’ve stated every time, I write music without actually paying attention to or writing in the time signature changes, just writing in 4/4 or 1/4 or whatever and ignoring barlines (though definitely consciously making sure my writing is free enough for odd time/polyrhythms/polymeter to form itself). So these timesig changes I had to spend a lot of time figuring out on my own just now as much as I would with any other song pretty much.

This soundtrack has music where the drums are only playing when triggered by your actions in the game, so for these soundtrack uploads I just played one version first and the other version second. In this case the version without drums plays first and then the version with drums plays second, but the loop point is still 1:49 really.

This song is ridiculously polymetric to the point I’m going to have to write the timesig chart out multiple times for different layers and in general am going to have to talk about a bunch of parts separately. Here I go!

1) Focusing mainly on whatever I personally consider the ‘base’ groove at a given moment (ie what i’d actually write on sheet music):

(0:00 - 0:15) 6 bars of 4/4, 1 bar of 7/8

(0:15 - 0:24) 3 bars of 4/4, 1 bar of 5/4

(0:24 - 0:33) 4 bars of 4/4

(0:33 - 1:05) [4/4, 4/4, 11/8, 4 bars of 4/4]x2

(1:05 - 1:12) 4/4, 4/4, 24/20*

(1:12 - 1:21) 3 bars of 4/4, 2 bars of 5/8

(1:21 - 1:26) 2 bars of 9/8

(1:26 - 1:44) [3 bars of 4/4, 1 bar of 17/16]x2

(1:44 - 1:49) 4/4, 4/4, 2/4

(1:49 - end) [same as 0:00 - 1:49 except with drums]

*Yes that is a bar of 24/20, it’s very concretely interpreted as irrational time to me personally, rather than a sudden tempo shift with metric modulation. The bass is doing constant quintuplets, but it does 24 in one bar instead of an even group of 5 so you can’t count it as 5/4 or 4/4 or anything. Some might argue this would be easier to read as a tempo change where the quintuplet becomes the 16th note temporarily, but I feel it’s best thought of as just quintuplets at the same tempo as everything else. If someone wrote it out as metric modulation where the quintuplets become the 16th note though it would still be a perfectly valid way to write it!

As another note, the drums from 3:11 to the end are all just a constant quarter note pulse, but I still wrote x/8 and x/16 time signatures over it because I felt those were a more dominant feel at those points, and instead interpret that hi-hat click as beat displacement layered on top of non-4/4 timesig changes until it finally lines up toward the end.

Also yeah the 4/4 at the VERY start here for the first 15 seconds mostly only makes sense in the with-drums version of the tune. Otherwise your only real feel to go by is the part I have listed below. If you were writing an arrangement for people to play this where you didn’t have drums come in the first time, the way this does, you’d be better off writing the first 15 seconds the way I have it below.

2) Focusing on the main mixed meter synth figure

(0:00 - 0:15) 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16, 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 6/8, 5/16

(0:15 - 0:33) 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16, [the rest of this section is random notes from the 7/8 + 13/16 + 7/8 + 11/16 groove being randomly chosen (based on the random hard L vs hard R panning) and the L layer and R layer going out of phase with each other at different rates. This is barely audible in the final mix but here’s :15 - :33 with this layer isolated to make it easier to hear. https://instaud.io/2P1Y ]

(0:33 - 1:05) [7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16, 6/8]x2 (note: this section has two layers of that bass synth, one offset to play 1 16th note later and 1 octave higher. Both layers have completely different random panning as well, so this makes it challenging to feel this mixed meter pattern clearly because more likely you’ll be paying attention to the high note that’s a 16th note late, or accidentally alternate what part you’re hearing)

(1:05 - 1:37) [same as the version 1 of the timesig chart since that synth line isn’t present here]

(1:37 - 1:44) 7/8, 13/16, 7/8, 11/16

(1:44 - 1:49) 7/8, 13/16, 13/16

Additionally at :20 there’s a layer that’s playing this same figure added on top except it’s playing in dotted 16th notes relative to everything else. It’s a solid loop of 7/8 played at the tempo of “if those dotted 16ths were 8th notes”, rather than the tempo of everything else (this was inspired heavily by Fez - Knowledge, which does a similar thing). I guess you could interpret them as being played in 21/32 time too, but that’s a weird way to think of it since it’s all groups of 3 32 note beats.

3) The organ and piano stabs

These are basically RANDOM, there’s not really a convenient way to write a time signature chart around them even if they exist in a “polymetric” state to everything else, it’s really just random rhythmic stabs to convolute this even more hahaha. I just picked a random feeling rhythmic feeling that I thought sounded cool. There is methodology to their layering against each other however:

In the first use of them from :06 - :15 though the piano rhythm is exactly the same as the organ rhythm except delayed to play 15 16th note beats later.

The 2nd instance from :28 - :33 is just hocketing (one instrument playing in the gaps of the other).

In final instance at 1:30 - 1:44 the piano rhythm’s exactly the same as the organ rhythm except the piano rhythm is delayed to play exactly 7 quarter note beats later.

4) The polyrhythms in the drums!!

Starting at 2:56 the drum loops start stretching/squashing an amount of beats into one bar that isn’t the same tempo as everything else.

2:56 - 2:59 is 6/4 squashed to the space of 4/4

2:59 - 3:01 I already addressed far above, it’s an irrational time bar where there’s 24 quintuplets, but you could interpret the drums there as 5+5+5+9 6/4 squashed into the space of 24/20 but that obviously makes little sense.

3:01 - 3:04 is “10.6666.../16″ stretched to the space of 4/4 (this is really just dotted 16th notes in 4/4 except since that doesn’t line up nicely with 4/4 evenly the last beat has 1/3 cut off of it)

3:04 - 3:05 is just normal 16ths/32nds in 2/4

3:05 - 3:06 is 11/16 stretched to the space of 2/4

3:06 - 3:08 is just normal 16ths in 4/4

3:08 - 3:09 is 4/4 stretched to the length of a 5/8 bar

Then after that it’s back to normal 16ths in 4/4 for the rest

In sheet music you’d most likely just write these as tuplets, but I’m describing them the way I am here because they’re drum loops originally at different tempos, so this should make the sound easier to understand exactly how I stretch/squashed their speed.

I really thought it would be fun to play with the feel being entirely different with drums vs. without drums so that’s why I did a ton of playing around with that. In the drumless version of that section obviously it all just feels like normal 16ths in 4/4 (or 5/8 for 2 bars) but once the drums come in that feeling entirely changes.

- - - - -

HOPEFULLY THAT ADDresses everything and hopefully I explained it all articulately enough for it to all make sense! This track has possibly the most rhythmic eccentricity going on in this entire soundtrack, despite arguably being the most conventionally pleasant one to listen to and technically being mostly written in 4/4 in typical sheet music. You wouldn’t think it’s this difficult to write out but it definitely is.

Oh yeah also this has my voice from when I was like 15 years old in it hahaha.

This tune is in general a tribute to what my taste in music (and life) was like when I was that age so it borrows a lot of traits from it.

That was when I first got into steve reich and that sort of polymetric minimalist music (it is probably very obvious that this is inspired by steve reich and similar minimalism stuff haha).

Was also when I first got interested in tracker music (some patches from this are the same as ones in tracker module files I was really into at the time and stylistically this is vaguely similar to some of the tracker musicians I listened to a ton back then).

I also was just very enamored by electronic music with this type of sound to it.

It’s also when I first started using fl studio so i intentionally used a few fairly blunt fl studio sytrus/etc presets here haha.

Among various other reasons I could list, this tune is a pretty personal tribute to my life and interests in 2007, a time I consider one of the best in my life. Just felt like adding that info in right now!

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bakagamieru · 7 years

Note

Hey gami, I was wondering if you were gonna share your thoughts/ give a review for flicker? What did you think? :)

I love it! I took Friday off partly in order to listen to it when it came out instead of having to wait until I came home from work.

The album is actually growing on me more and more as I listen to it even though I thought it was great from the start anyway.

Uhhhh, I kind of went a little overboard once I started typing my thoughts...

Sound

It’s definitely got a pretty coherent tone to it which some people will say is too boring and some people will say makes the songs sound too samey, but it’s nice to immerse yourself in a mood and you can do that with Niall’s album. It’s all very gentle, very heartfelt, and very sincere. I bet it would be easy to fall asleep to this album with how soothing it is.

I think Niall’s vocals are the best they’ve ever been on the album. Like I always thought, more acoustic-leaning songs help highlight his voice with it’s more talk-y quality and rasp. Niall’s always had a bit of an oddball voice because he’s got these clear, pure high tones and yet he can also have a rasp on both the high and the low end. The gentle acoustic sound of the album helps all of those things shine. Niall is pretty bread and butter (in a good way that makes it easy to connect to his voice) until he suddenly puts in one of those trills or intentional breaks and then you’re left there with your mouth hanging open.

It’s a bit weird having heard all the songs live and then having to get used to the studio versions, but I think the studio versions are awesome for the most part. I do think the different notes in On the Loose are kind of odd and maybe should have been re-recorded, but that’s mostly the only gripe I have.

Lyric Themes

To be honest, the lyrics of Niall’s album shock me a little. We’ve only ever heard his solo songs up until now be about one night stands and hook-ups. That would be apart from DFWYB which isn’t about romance in the first place. Anyway, it feels weird that Niall is kind of known for writing those hook-up songs and then he comes out of nowhere with an album that’s all dedicated love, anxious longing, and wistful remembrance.

To be fair, there were hints of it here and there, especially in the lyrics of Temporary Fix. Something that carried over from Temporary Fix is that Niall seems to have a recurring theme of putting himself in a more submissive or supporting role in a relationship than most men do.

There are several songs that specifically mention the girl making the first move:

Temporary Fix- “you were looking at me first”

Slow Hands- " ‘We should take this back to my place’ That's what she said right to my face”

Seeing Blind- “now you’re talking to me first”

Then there are several songs that are specifically about wanting his partner to open up and wanting to listen to his partner’s problems:

Fire Away- “you can go ahead and unload it cause you know it’ll be ok, fire away”

Since We’re Alone- “tell me what you’re running from”

Mirrors (sort of, it’s not about his partner, but it is about inner struggles getting seen) “she looks into her mirror, wishing someone could hear her, so loud”

There are also several songs that are kind of entreating his partner to hold on to him, whether the relationship is still going or not (it kinds of puts the power in their hands rather than his own):

Too Much to Ask- “tell me there are things that you regret”

You and Me- “time has never been on our side, so would you wait for me?

The Tide- “don't let the tide come and wash us away, don't let the tide come and take me”

Flicker- “still a flicker of hope that you first gave to me that I wanna keep, please don't leave”

Warmth

I’m glad that there’s an inherent respect for his partners in Niall’s songs. Zayn’s music has that too and it just makes it so much easier to listen to. I don’t know how much either of them know about feminism or relationship discourse, but I would suspect Niall isn’t very versed on it considering he tends to make comments that show the unconsciously ingrained and unintentionally harmful brand of sexism.

Anyway, my point is that there’s a sort of gentleness and warmth inherent in both Zayn and Niall’s lyrics that has to come from their nature because I don’t think it’s from any particular enlightenment through discourse. It’s nice that it’s from their nature, though, because you can tell that they’re truly decent people.

That’s not to say that Harry, Louis, and Liam aren’t the same, but I don’t know that the types of songs they’ve written have reflected it in the way I’m talking about for Zayn and Niall. This is because I think all of the songs about love and sex that are based on real experience that have come from these 3 are about men, but I think some of Zayn and Niall’s songs are legitimately about women.

I do hear that gentleness in the songs Louis has written that are about (most likely) Harry or about non-romantic things, and I hear that gentleness in the songs Harry has written (most likely) about Louis. I don’t think any of Liam’s songs so far have sounded like they were based on his genuine experience, so I can’t judge that one.

Yes, he and Louis wrote a lot together, but based on the lyrics released in Liam’s solo songs vs. Louis’ solo songs so far, I think it’s fair to say that Louis is far more interested in lyrics and it’s likely that a lot of the lyrics in their collabs came from Louis. At first I didn’t want to say that because it’s true that Liam doesn’t get enough credit for those collabs, but I honestly think the evidence at this point supports Louis being the lyric guy while Liam is the melody guy.

Aggh, I’m having trouble explaining myself succinctly here, but I’m not trying to get too much into the politics of assigning sexuality to people we don’t know or open a can of worms about who wrote what on Liam and Louis’ collabs.

It’s just me trying to explain a feeling I get from their lyrics when Zayn and Niall talk about sex and/or women.

Specific Songs

The only pure, happy love song in terms of the story of the song would be Seeing Blind. The lyrics of that are interesting to me because he says that he’s heard the person speak a million times already before they even talk to each other for the first time. That would indicate to me that whoever he’s talking about is someone who shows up in media somehow because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to hear them if he hadn’t met them yet.

The one song I would say feels really odd and out of place to me is On My Own. I like it well enough, but that and Slow Hands are the only 2 songs on the album that go back to that “single Niall” aesthetic from before the album.

I also don’t really get the lyrics of On My Own because he talks about turning down someone who’s interested (presumably for a short fling), but then he’s also talking about “kissing all the women”. So are you up for a one night stand or not Niall? I haven’t figured out that one yet other than that it’s basically just an ode to bars. I’m not saying there has to be anything deep behind it, but I like to figure out a meaning for songs that’s consistent across the lyrics and I’m having trouble doing that for On My Own.

Of course I somehow didn’t end up mentioning my favorite song in all of that. Paper Houses just gets me. I think it’s kind of in league with Too Much to Ask and This Town in that it can be read as the other straight-up break-up song on the album. However, it’s vague enough that it could apply to any sort of relationship or collective and I like that. I think his voice is probably in its best element on that song too.

I would say Fire Away is probably my 2nd favorite for similar reasons, but The Tide is right on its heels even though it’s solidly about romance.

See, that’s the thing. I usually don’t like songs that are about romance because I think it’s way overdone. About 95% of songs you hear on the radio are about romance and there are so many other parts of the human experience that deserve to get attention instead. However, I think having not heard Niall write about committed relationships before helps in making this album feel fresh despite that. I also think a large chunk of it is down to Niall pouring his heart and his real feelings into the album. It comes across as genuine.

Summary

I really love Niall’s album. It’s something that creeps up on you quietly and sits on you unassumingly. It’s a great representation of his entire career so far.

I personally would say Niall has had the most successful career at this point despite it being the least flashy. I’m basing that on the combination of the industry buzz, positive reviews, general audience reaction, consistency of charting, longevity of songs, streaming, and sales. All the others tend to have a corner of the market locked down, but I think Niall’s the only one who’s doing well across all the metrics. The only thing he’s a little low on is his hits on his music videos, but to be fair he only has the 1 that’s a real music video.

It’s just kind of mind-boggling to think about because Niall always does things like this. He doesn’t ever stand center-stage, and yet somehow he manages to steal everyone’s hearts under the radar.

To be fair to the others, it has to be said Niall hasn’t really experienced the sabotage they have either. Poor Zayn and Louis are getting maliciously neglected while Liam is sunk in a shithole of bearding and official narrative. Harry, while his official narrative isn’t the nicest for fans, generally benefits him when it comes to the industry and the general public. He could have more promo though.

#one direction #Niall Horan #solo niall #flicker album #review #bakagamieru #Anonymous

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t-baba · 5 years

Photo

How User Research Turned a Good App into a Great One

Firstly, the backstory. In 2013 the popular Cook app was launched, and it’s great to reflect on the journey it’s been through.

I love to cook. This is probably not surprising for someone who created a cooking app. As a child, some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the kitchen bench watching my mother cook amazing food for all manner of social events, and getting to help stir or participate in other small ways was a highlight for me.

I really think food holds many memories. The smell of food, or the type of dish you’re eating, can take you back in time — in much the same way music has the ability to trigger memories of different times in your life, reminding you of people and places from your past.

It was the memories of the past that led me to think of a digital recipe book being a good idea for an app.

I was chatting with my mother one day and asked her where my grandmother’s baked custard recipe was. She responded, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think she ever wrote it down. She just did it from memory.”

I was horrified. It was a simple recipe. But at the time I asked the question, my grandmother had been dead for ten years. That meant the recipes I recalled from my past — simple though they were — had now been lost with her. My grandmother isn’t any different from many home cooks who have an array of recipes they cook so often they know how to do them from memory, and so never write them down.

Recipes can represent your heritage in many ways. My grandmother’s was a simple recipe, and I could probably easily recreate it from a web search. But this particular recipe held special memories of baked dinners and times spent with my grandmother. Because she didn’t write it down, it was lost now — never to be recovered.

So Cook was first imagined as a way to preserve the heritage of family recipes — helping to overcome the loss of handwritten recipes over time, assisting to preserve recipes from generations of family cooks. By digitizing the old world of index cards, tatty old recipe books, or other random means, my hope was to enable family recipes to be captured and shared with future generations. Digital meant that recipes could be handed down more easily and not lost to a time gone by.

The Opportunity to Do Something Knocks

Like many people who have a killer idea for an app, I did nothing with this idea for ages. I was just another person that imagined a “great idea” for an app and bored people with that idea at dinner parties.

Then, in 2011, SitePoint approached me to write a book on UX.

SitePoint is a publication mainly aimed toward the developer community, so they suggested that a case study would be useful in bringing the value of UX to life for their readers in a more tangible way.

UX has often been viewed with skepticism in terms of tangible, measurable benefit. In those days, it was still kind of new to consider “the user” of a product as you developed it — as crazy as that sounds. So I discussed with my editor Simon the idea for the app, and that we could incorporate the story of it into the UX book.

We imagined that each chapter could talk about the key methods to follow, and that the app would be the living and breathing example of how we put the methods to work in order to bring the app idea to life. In this sense, Cook became the case study for taking a “human-centered design” approach to product design.

So, by writing the book we were able to mature the idea of a recipe app a bit further, taking an educational approach.

The UX Rules of Product Development

Whenever creating a product, you should ask yourself three simple questions:

What problem needs solving?

Who are you solving it for?

How are you going to measure success?

What Problem Needs Solving?

Quite often this gets answered as a product is imagined, and Cook was no different. I was a passionate home cook that thought there was potentially was a gap in the market, based on a pain I had encountered. Although it’s wise to never think you are your users, this is the way many ideas start. And this thought spurred on the idea for a digital recipe book. Exploration of that idea comes next.

As part of the process of exploration, we needed to scan the landscape. What else was out there? Were we the only ones with this idea? How could we be inspired by the competing and complimentary offerings that existed? Had someone else beaten us to it?

This task proved to be a scary one, as we discovered the cooking app landscape was littered with famous celebrity chefs. Jamie and Nigella were everywhere. I was a passionate home chef, but I was no MasterChef. Eeep! However, regardless of the talent in the space, the design gap still remained. There was no app we could find that presented people with a stupidly simple means of creating recipes and storing them digitally. There were many complex ones that were hard to use. And therefore, not only was there a gap, but there was an area that we could easily differentiate — simply by being easy to use.

Who Are We Solving It For?

The problem we were solving for was, to my mind, home cooks. Passionate, average, everyday cooks, the type of people that had their own recipe scrapbook full of favorite recipes from times past. Collected from family and friends over the years.

This focus is why we initially named the app “Family Favorites”. It said what we intended — but it was a bit lame in selling the dream from a marketing perspective, and also tended to pigeonhole the target audience in a way we didn’t want. That is, it seemed to say “families only”.

We knew we had work to do on the name and on giving it a broader appeal. Nevertheless, the placeholder name held for a while as we got on with the business of researching and creating the app. We’d think about the name later.

Measuring Success

Obviously, the easiest measure of success was going to be people downloading it and using it. Actually, creating recipes within the app was going to be the main measure of success at this stage. This measure would change over time as the design and concept evolved, but, at a basic level, if you’re downloading an app and using it, it’s a good basic success metric.

We agonized over whether to charge for the app or not, and we eventually decided we needed eyeballs in the early days. So the app would be free, so that there was no barrier to people downloading it.

What Taking a “UX” Approach Means in Practice

We ate our own dog food and followed a “human-centered design approach” (HCD), or “UX” approach. This approach is more commonly understood and accepted nowadays as a beneficial approach to product development. But what does it mean in practice?

HCD, UX, even service design (SD), are all very similar in their philosophy: that is, to design by putting the human at the center of your design process — considering their needs upfront and throughout the product development process, being prototype-driven (that is, experimental), and iterative (that is, changing your mind and updating the design, based on what you learn from exploration and validation with people). It’s stupidly simple. We did all these things developing Cook. It works.

I’ve often told the story of how I recruited people to take part in some concept exploration research before we started designing the app. I did this across a weekend — the only time I could fit it in around work. I told participants I was going to come over to their house, and I wanted them to prepare and cook for me one of their favorite recipe dishes of all time.

Everyone I tell this story to laughs and says the same thing. “Nice one! You just wanted to be fed!”

Without doubt, it was one of the most enjoyable sessions I’ve ever run, and I certainly loved the many and varied outputs. But that was part of the real trick — to ensure they didn’t really know what I was exploring.

From a process perspective, I sent them a homework activity to complete before I got there, so we could talk about it. The homework task was to create a poster that combined words and images to show how they feel about cooking (this helped prime them to the topic). They knew I was going to arrive and chat to them while they prepared the dish, but they didn’t really know what it was I was researching beyond that.

As they prepared the food, I asked them questions about the dish they’d chosen, and watched to see if they used a recipe, and where they had the recipe as a reference. (Was it in a recipe scrap book? Was it in a book? Index cards? From memory? Other?)

I intentionally didn’t talk about storage or recipe management too much. That part I observed. I talked to them mainly about their love of cooking, how they came to find this recipe and how it ended up being a family favorite. I talked about how they came across new ideas for cooking dishes and where they kept things stored. But we didn’t ever talk about whether they thought a “digital recipe app” was a good idea or not.

The trick to good research is to explore around the edges of what you’re looking at, and not let the people you’re talking to necessarily know what you’re actually researching.

You gain real insights from observing people’s true habits and behaviors, rather than by asking direct questions about their habits — which just puts people in a position of making up an answer if they don’t know why they do what they do. Most of the time we don’t know why we do things. We just do them automatically. It’s a habit we’ve formed for some reason, and it serves a particular purpose for us. Exploring the purpose around what we do, and why, is the job of a design researcher.

This comes to another thing about design research: we explore the way users work and live in a more contextual manner, and from that we gain inspiration for design. People often forget the little details of routine, so going into their environment helps us make connections that they might not think to articulate. Design research is intended to explore the design gaps and facilitate a better understanding for how users’ needs can be met — so that we can design better solutions for them.

One of the central tenets of HCD is to go to the extremes. Don’t just engage with people you think you’re creating the product for. Go to the edges and get inspiration from the types of users who might never want to buy your product. The anti-users and the experts often give you the best hints for how your product can differentiate itself and appeal to a broader market.

The people I recruited to participate included passionate home cooks, people who couldn’t cook, people who hated cooking, and professional chefs.

What I Learned that Changed My Thinking

The idea we went into research to create was quite different from what we came out with. We went into concept research absolutely sure we had an opportunity to create a digital recipe cookbook that people could store their recipes within. The ability to be digital meant cherished recipes would never be lost, and you could keep adding to your digital cookbook indefinitely.

What we missed with this perspective, however, was the gap for sharing and swapping recipes. And we also totally underestimated people’s voyeuristic, idle curiosity about what other people cook and eat from day to day.

It’s funny. I’m a passionate home cook. But I was so focused on what I thought the product needed to be that I totally overlooked many things that user research helped me open my eyes to and refocus on. In this sense, my own bias about the product made me overlook critical product features that would help make the app really special.

This points to a few things about research.

As a human, you have a lot of biases and self-fulfilling tendencies when creating a product you’ve been personally invested in. You really need to watch that. It’s part of being human, and hard to control. Being aware of it and testing your assumptions with real people other than you is critical.

As a design researcher, you have to be open to changing your mind about what you think you know to be true. This is product design, not art. The purpose of design is to ensure it’s as good as it possibly can be for the eventual end users. You need to accept that your initial wonderful idea might not have it all covered. You need to change your mind, and your design approach, based on what you learn. Otherwise, you’re just creating art.

This self-reflective moment is essential for design researchers. Your humble attitude to being open to new ideas, and changing your design accordingly, is not only essential, it’s critical to your success.

The Critical Aha Moments

People who love to cook often are friends with other people who love to cook. Swapping and sharing recipes is something they do. But as we learned, it’s a difficult and messy process.

This was the first aha moment. When we unpacked the research, we realized we needed to make Cook more than just a digital recipe book. We needed to facilitate sharing. It needed to be a social network for recipe sharing — enabling you to connect with friends and family and access each other’s recipes.

Another aha moment was discovering that people were fascinated by what other people cooked and ate. Not the exotic or highly skilled cheffy stuff, but the everyday meals that were quick and easy were interesting to people. Ultimately, they wanted inspiration for their everyday. But it had to be quick and simple — things that didn’t take too long. They were curious about what other people were doing in the kitchen on week nights, when they were pushed for time and were preparing for the week ahead.

Another critical aha moment was that people’s voyeuristic food tendencies weren’t limited to the banality of the local day-to-day. They were interested in the day-to-day food from other cultures. We discovered that many people attend cooking courses and buy recipe books from countries they visit. And while they’re interested in the exotic and higher-brow stuff, they’re also interested in the day-to-day. This opened our eyes to the prospect of a global recipe sharing network, which would facilitate users seeing what everyday cooks in other countries cooked regularly.

This led to two things: we launched the app globally, rather than just in Australia, and we partly focused recipe browsing on where recipes were submitted from. So one of the main navigation features was the “world books”, which allowed you to see what the everyday cooks in the UK, or USA, or Singapore were cooking.

This may seem like a little thing, but to me this really was one of the coolest features of Cook. Yes, people in the USA have an inordinate amount of Oreo Cookie recipes to share, and people in Italy have an amazing stash of pasta dishes.

Another aha moment was considering how to assist users to “fill up” their recipe book without having to actually write out recipes. People who had recipe scrap books had been adding to them for years — and still they might not have had many recipes within them. This was a concern for us. For Cook to be successful, you needed to be able to have it all, and it needed to be super simple.

We knew that searching the Web was a common way to find recipes. So the need to search the Web for recipes and add them to your book was clear, but another way to help build out your book was to be able to add recipes you found within Cook, from across the global selection. This helped to save the things you loved as your own, and also helped to fill out your book quickly and easily.

These things may not appear to be much. But they were a fundamentally different way to design and build out the app. And we were able to then do these things because we did this research up-front, before we had started to build or lay down foundations that were going to be hard (or impossible) to change. We were letting what we’d learned reshape our thoughts of the Cook app, which was a great position to be in.

Where We Are Now

Cook launched in 2013, a year after the launch of the book Killer UX Design, and I’m pleased to say we’re still rated one of the top 20 best apps for the food and drink category.

We’ve had 1.5 million downloads to date, and there have been 800 thousand recipes shared through the app worldwide.

Cook is featured on iPads in the Apple store around the world. In fact, I’ll never forget going into the Apple store in NYC and seeing Cook on the iPads on display. Wow! What a thrill that was.

The app has many dedicated users who love and cherish their digital cookbook. I don’t think I could have dreamed of a happier ending.

Like all start-ups, we always managed Cook on the side of our day jobs. And it’s the same right now. We’ve never received any funding and have been keeping the dream alive through our dedicated community of Cooks, who create and share content via the app daily.

We never did change the charging model, so to date, Cook has brought us lots of grateful moments, but no money. As we mentioned, we decided to remove all barriers for download and therefore not to charge for the app. To this day the app is free — an expensive decision, but the right one at that time.

The funniest thing about apps is that you ask someone to go to a different bank ATM and pay $3 to extract money and no one batts an eyelid. You ask someone to pay $3 for an app and they’re up in arms! And so not charging for Cook is something we’re going to reconsider.

It’s certainly hard sometimes for people who use Cook to understand that there are only about two people overseeing that app. So right now I’m looking for funding to keep Cook going into the future — a true labor of love.

Working with Cook has been a design experience of a lifetime, and one that totally validates the HCD approach we set out to prove.

The post How User Research Turned a Good App into a Great One appeared first on SitePoint.

by Jodie Moule via SitePoint https://ift.tt/2CaCbzp

#CSS3 #HTML5 Branding #HTML5 Weekly #HTMLl5 demos #Javascript Branding #Javascript Weekly #Mobile #Mo

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mattgambler · 6 years

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Dark Souls versus Nioh

TLDR: I played Dark Souls 1-3 about 18 months ago and yesterday I abandoned my first ever Nioh playthrough halfway through. I compare my experiences and declare them both winner and loser at the end of the day.

Today after waking up I was greeted on Discord by a public message of one of my mods which had me typing frantically in a matter of seconds: so Nioh went the same path as every other soulslike game ? Final call on it matt? ( wich mechanics where new wich ones where even more frustrating and wich ones where a welcome change from the other soulslike games?) I wanna clarify that I played a couple of “soulslike” games over the past 2 years and rarely left one of them unbeaten, so his first line had me somewhat confused about what exactly he meant, given that I had abandoned my Nioh playthrough halfway through only the day before. The games I had played (and I am aware of the fact that some rather important ones are missing) were the three Dark Souls games, Salt and Sanctuary, Dead Cells, Titan Souls and now Nioh. I usually want to beat these sort of games even if I don’t enjoy them, and be it only so I an criticize them without sounding like a whiner who simply didn’t git gud enough. Useless gamer pride, I know. But while I sat there, talking about how I had beaten all the other games before this one, I knew what he was probably talking about - which was me not liking the game. I also didn’t like DarkSouls 1-3 that much, and back when I streamed them it was usually me versus my chat as I tried to win the unwinnable argument of convincing fans of a game why it was clearly and “objectively” bad. Or at least not as good as everyone wanted me to believe. But let’s look at Ashtaks actual question. At first glance, Nioh does a couple of things which had me praising it as soon as I encountered them. Inventory indicators for what you had picked up since you last looked into your inventory. A clear path to follow. Storytelling that looked like actual storytelling for a change. I was sure I would like this one! But the longer I played, the more I noticed the glaring flaws that were worked deep into the games core, and which became even more apparent given how those flaws were mostly absent from the soulsgames I had worked my way through back then. The linear progression was nice in comparison to the at times random and unintuitive nature of Dark Souls, where I only managed to find the painted world of Ariamis after my chat had given me step by step instructions on how to find and enter it. But at the same time the missions soon started to feel same-ish, another temple, another batch of yokai that had corrupted something vengeful spirits something save that village something hope you dont mind taking a look at my yard while you are there Anjin Sama please make sure I didnt leave the window open. The storytelling had me intrigued for about as long as it took me to realize that the narrative was meaningless and bland and that it didnt make much sense up to the point I had reached in my playthrough. There’s a villain and he wants to gather that ressource Amrita that the game had introduced you moments before, now he stole your guardian spirit which you apparently had all along and that seems to be the only spirit in the world that can detect that Amrita stuff even though you are collecting it left and right as quickly as you can because the next levelup will require another 78 000 units of it because, hell, gotta keep you grinding, am I rita? The inventory indicators were good at least. Sorely needed in the trash collecting simulator that both Nioh and the games in the Souls Franchise are, too! But while it made sifting through trash a lot easier and more practical, it didn’t really change the fact that I was collecting trash 99% of the time. At least in Dark Souls you didnt feel like losing out if you left that stuff lying on the ground because you couldn’t exchange it for souls as easily, if at all. (I don’t exactly remember.) But while I’m listing pros here just to pluck them apart right afterwards, I wanna say that weirdly enough I felt like I enjoyed Nioh more, on a surface level. Sure, the story was weirdly uninteresting, but at least it was there, right? The game was reusing the same enemies for mission after mission, but at least it didn’t give me bullshit like the Anor Londo archers or the Tomb of the Giants, or that fucking disgusting curse mechanic in the canalisation of dontaskmewhatthatareawascalled. At least I had my sense of where to go and my inventory indicators for newly picked up equipment, right? And finally some proper tutorials! Yes and no.

While Nioh comes with a metric shitton of improvements that Dark Souls would have desperately needed back then, while it looks great and plays smooth and overall does everything I wanted Dark Souls to do back then, it lacks the inspiration and credibility to actually make it all work for me. On day 6 I encountered a bossfight that was somewhat similar in tone to the Sif encounter in DarkSouls. You know, sad music, the boss was kind of a good guy, this time it was a cat spirit instead of a giant wolf, but yeah, you get it. All it accomplished was making me realize that I never cared much for that feline companion of mine in the first place. Sif, in comparison, had never been my companion. He(?) had never tried to be loyal or helpful to me. Weird how I still ended up caring so much more for him than for my own weird cat buddy that I had never really gotten to know all too well, but... at least he was around? I guess? Must have been the missing limping animation. Another thing that always struck me as unpleasant about the Souls games was that there were no proper tutorials. Here, you are in a cell, now go die. Again, Nioh delivers where Dark Souls fell short, several nicely spaced out tutorials to show you the ropes, how to switch stances, how to use skills, how to take a dump behind a tree. But while Dark Souls would have had me confused about many things if not for my chat, Nioh locks tutorials behind mission progress and usually ended up teaching me things only after I had figured them out on my own. And weirdly enough, those tutorials managed to both make me feel as if they were holding my hand too much as well as(!) if they weren’t clear enough on things. How do you even pull that off? Sure I’m learning in detail what I already know, but I still need to do the tutorials for the rewards and it has me standing there unsure about why it is not continuing because I already did what it wanted me to... I think.

And then there is all the stuff that is missing, at least up to the point that I reached in the game. While Nioh does a somewhat good job of fixing DarkSouls’ flaws (Seriously, that inventory indicator, how could you not have that, Dark Souls. I mean what the actual fuck.) it took things that were good and working and just left them out. Basic stuff, like leaving messages for other players, complex and intriguing things like covenants, boss weapons. Incredibly vital stuff like secrets! Dark Souls is full of them and while I was sometimes annoyed by a bonfire being too well hidden, or another entire area being hidden behind a random wall segment in an even more random wall, Nioh feels like it is incredibly afraid to hide anything, or give you a glimpse of a later boss in the distance, or leave any sort of mystery as the story progresses. The bad guy? Yeah, he stole that spirit to collect amrita. That spirit? Yeah, it has been with William since he was a child. That mission? Yeah, seemingly the kids were turned into yokai, or the shogun (or whatever he was) blew up his castle but he also broke his teaset and that teasets name was “flat spider” in japanese and because he broke it the boss of this level is a giant spider. Oh, that character you didn’t really care for? Here is an entire page of exposition for you if you wanna learn his role in all of this. Considering all of this and more (incredibly uninspired and therefore often confusing leveldesign, to name one of several things I’m not gonna go into too much detail here) I would already come to the conclusion that Dark Souls is a way more interesting and mysterious game than Nioh. Wild, reckless, interesting. Stupid at times, and fuck the tomb of the giants, what an embarrassing fuckup of modern game design, but still, a wondrous and intriguing journey overall. Personally I liked Dark Souls 2 best. But still I would have considered calling Nioh the more solid game, in a casual, gamey way. It plays well, you progress through it, you probably have somewhat of a good time anyway. I’ve always considered Dark Souls, especially the first and probably most iconic one, as more of a weird art piece than an actual good game. But Nioh was too hard for me. Yes, harder than Dark Souls, and not in a good way as far as I’m concerned. The sheer number of times I was literally oneshot with full hp because I didnt dodge this attack or that combo in time is just too damn high. Many deaths in Dark Souls came from intricate traps or simply stupidly falling to my death (because fuck swimming or holding on to ledges, right?) but while Nioh does that sometimes as well, the sheer damage that enemies deal with each attack and your characters morbid fetish for being stunlocked made what could have been at least casual fun into a frustrating mess over time. And I used a spear, the only weapon that scales with the hp stat anyway. I might just be bad, or not patient enough to die through yet another 20 bossfights until I figure out how to dodge enough attacks to barely succeed. But then again, I might just have had more fun dying in Dark Souls than I had dying in Nioh.

#dark souls #nioh #gaming #high difficulty

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uncleyarn2-blog · 5 years

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Our 2018 all-Chicago holiday gift guide

Sustenance

1/ Local coffee subscription: Back of the Yards, Dark Matter, or Metric Coffee

Coffee is the social lubricant that wakes you up, keeps you awake—or maybe puts you to sleep. You can drink it hot in winter to stay warm! But drink good, fresh coffee. Chicago is home to many fine craft coffee roasters, and may offer subscriptions for a steady supply. Metric Coffee offers espresso ($20) and blend ($20) subscriptions as well as a Roasters Choice Subscription ($22) and Single Origin Subscription ($24) each with two different eight-ounce bags in every weekly or monthly delivery. Dark Matter Coffee offers three, six, and twelve-month subscriptions to their monthly limited blends for $20 per month—with discounts for longer subscriptions. Back of the Yards Coffee Co.'s Coffee Club subscriptions page is currently under construction. Hopefully that will be available again soon. In the meantime, they do sell their espresso and 47th Street Blend medium-dark roast coffee in twelve-ounce bags ($15.99), with one dollar from every 47th Street Blend going to their Social Impact fund to benefit the neighborhood.—John Dunlevy Prices vary at backoftheyardscoffee.com, darkmattercoffee.com, and metriccoffee.com.

2/ Coffee maker Nº3 by Manual.is

Manual's newest coffee maker is four usages in one: pour over, French press, cold brew, and a pitcher. It can keep its liquids hot for about an hour in the double-wall insulated design. With this elegant, hand-blown borosilicate glass vessel, even a person who doesn't drink coffee regularly (me) will savor the ritual of making, and serving coffee. —Sue Kwong $140 at Manual Shop & Studio, 3251½ W. Bryn Mawr, 312-870-0799, manual.is.

3/ Mushroom tree ornaments by Facture Goods

The handcrafted mushroom Christmas ornaments come in earthy brown clay glazed in gray and flecked with 22-karat gold. They typically sell out in minutes when creator Aron Fischer puts a fresh batch in his online shop. But on November 24 you can find them at Martha Mae in Andersonville during Small Business Saturday. The mushrooms come in enoki, morel, shiitake, and straw varietals. Plus, while you're there, you can snag plenty more gifts for loved ones in Jean Cate's magical shop. —Maya Dukmasova $18 each or $60 for a set of four at facturegoods.com and on November 24 only at Martha Mae, 5407 N. Clark, 872-806-0988, marthamae.info.

4/ Malort soy candle

Everyone's favorite drink in candle form. —Vince Cerasani $30 at reuse-first.com.

5/ Tellicherry Black Whole Peppercorns from Reluctant Trading Experiment

Pretty amazing pepper from an outfit started by Scott Eirinberg, the entrepreneur who founded, and later sold, The Land of Nod. —Suggested by Kate Schmidt, written by Reader staff Starting at $6.50 at reluctanttrading.com.

Self Care

1/ Houseplant from Foyer

This little plant and stationary store opened in Andersonville a few months ago. It's run by a tremendously helpful and non-judgmental Alma Vescovi, who wants you to get past your fear of killing houseplants. The stock is refreshed weekly and she carries hard-to-find varietals like pilea, monstera, and satin pothos alongside all kinds of succulents and cacti. There are also vintage planters and pots as well as ones made by local artists. If things don't go well with your new plant friend, you can always bring it back for a check-up with Vescovi. She once helped me resuscitate a delicate plumosa fern. It's doing great. Plants are the gift that keeps on giving.—Maya Dukmasova Starting at $8 at 1480 W. Berwyn, 713-994-0302, foyer.shop.

2/ Sound wave art, Soundwaves by Mordecai

Kathleen Mordecai turns sound waves from parts of songs or special moments (for example Pat Hughes saying "Chicago Cubs win the World Series" or children's laughter, as pictured) into sculptures she handcrafts using reclaimed wood. Whether you're shopping for someone who lives in a tiny studio, or in a mansion with plenty of wall space to fill, there's likely an option that will fit; the current selection of sculptures in her online shop runs from 12 inches to 4 feet. Mordecai also takes custom orders, and for those who want to be able to hear the sound while enjoying the visuals, she offers an option for audio playback. —Jamie Ludwig Starting at $76 at etsy.com/soundwavesbyMordecai.

3/ Soap Distillery

The brand tagline for Soap Distillery may promise "Small batches. No hangovers," but no such claim can be made about whether these boozy body care miracles are addictive. Because they are, friends. A bottle of the Beer + Cigarettes hand and body wash disappeared so quickly from my bathroom that I'm not entirely convinced my partner wasn't drinking it. Perfect for the person on your list who always smells so damn good. —Karen Hawkins Prices vary at soapdistillery.com. Catch up with founder Danielle Martin at a holiday shopping event or click here for a list of retailers.

4/ King Spa & Sauna

King Spa & Sauna, the Korean spa in Niles, does not fulfil the glossy magazine ideal of the spa day. There are no fluffy white robes, no soothing music or nice-smelling oils and lotions. Instead, there's a series of saunas, each filled with a different substance that will relieve you of a different source of stress, each more baroque than the last: amethyst geodes, living crystals, 350-million-year-old salt rocks, a 23-karat gold pyramid. The admission fee gets a person access to all of them, plus the soaking pools, food court, and movie theater. (Massages and other spa treatments are extra.) The spa's open 24 hours, so guests can stay as long as they like. In Korea, entire families go to spas for an easy weekend getaway. Maybe they're onto something? —Aimee Levitt $40 admission at King Spa & Sauna, 809 Civic Center Drive, Niles, 847-972-2540, kingspa.com/chicago. Gift cards available.

5/ Mochimochi Land knitting kits

Forget sweaters and scarves, Mochimochi Land gives you the tools to show off your needle skills by knitting something truly unique: cute miniature characters like tiny burgers or tiny walruses or tiny robots and really any other tiny thing you can dream up. The kits go for $12-$15 and include yarn, stuffing, notions, and patterns—all you need are knitting needles, available separately on the website. Mochimochi Land creator Anna Hrachovec features her knitted friends in stop-motion animated videos and GIFs of everyday life in the mystical, yarn-covered land of her own creation. Hrachovec also used the style in her book, Adventures in Mochimochi Land, which follows the adventures of a talking doughnut and a lovelorn balloon, of course. The online shop offers patterns for larger, equally adorable knitting projects ranging from $5-$8 and, for the less crafty among us, pre-knit gnomes, hedgehogs, zombies, and unicorns for $25 each. —Brianna Wellen Prices vary at mochimochiland.com.

6/ Mano y Metal handmade accessories

These aren't your basic accessories. Mano y Metal offers handmade metal jewelry that spices up any look. Owner Desiree T. Guzman features hand stamped metal rings, cuff bracelets, earrings, necklaces, dog tags and more with empowering sayings engraved on them like "be badass" ("chingona" in Spanish) or "me vale madre" which translates to "I don't give a damn." The online shop even offers options available for customization and a Chicago collection. —Marissa De La Cerda $10 for keychains, $16 for rings, $20-$22 for double finger rings, $16-$28 for bracelets, $17-$58 for necklaces at manoymetal.com.

7/ The WasteShed Art Supplies

Help fuel your loved one's winter craft addiction and help rescue markers, knitting needles and paints from the landfill. Cultivating a more sustainable culture, The WasteShed accepts donations of art supplies and repurposes art, craft and school supplies. Pull together a gift basket for a DIY project from their low cost offerings, or grab a gift certificate for the creatives and teachers on your list. While you're there, drop off the crocheting you gave up on. The WasteShed is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) so your donations are tax deductible! See their web site for complete list of acceptable donations. — Jamie Ramsay Prices vary at 2842 W. Chicago, 773-666-5997, thewasteshed.com.

8/ Mermaid lessons at AquaMermaid

Who doesn't know someone who once dreamed of being a mermaid? (If your answer is "me," feel free to skip this item.) Fortunately, AquaMermaid exists for the sole purpose of helping people fulfill this glorious dream. Weekly lessons are available on Sunday afternoons at the UIC Sports and Fitness Center pool for both kids and adults; parties can also be arranged. You'll learn basic mermaid maneuvers, like how to glide gracefully underwater, flip your fins, and wave gracefully with your tail. And yes, tails are provided—though you'll have to wear your own bathing suit, or a seashell bra if you want to go full Ariel. Be warned: being a mermaid is a lot harder than it looks, but you'll get a great core workout. —Aimee Levitt Starting at $60 at UIC Sports and Fitness Center, 901 W. Roosevelt Road, 866-279-2767, aquamermaid.com.

Community Care

1/ Chicago Community Bond Fund donation

What better way to spread holiday cheer than to help someone in jail get home to their family? CCBF accepts donations large and small to pay bail for those awaiting trial in Cook County Jail. —Maya Dukmasova Visit chicagobond.org to see the criteria they use to select whose bail to pay.

2/ Women & Children First gift certificate

This post-#MeToo moment is a really good time to give all the sexist jerks in your life a gift certificate to one of the oldest and most significant women-owned bookstores in the US. Making people support women-owned businesses and select from an array of books including a higher-than-average spate by women and nonbinary folks is truly a gift that will benefit generations to come. —Anne Elizabeth Moore Prices vary at 5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenfirst.com.

3/ My Block, My Hood, My City gear

Founded by Jamal Cole, MBMHMC is a connectivity-encouraging, mentoring nonprofit that focuses on providing underserved teenagers exposure to opportunities beyond their familiar neighborhoods. Through excursions in STEM, art, entrepreneurism, and community development, called the Explorers Program, as well as service projects like shoveling snow for seniors, MBMHMC fosters experiences to nurture and empower Chicago youth. Twenty percent of all apparel sales go toward the Explorers Program. On December 1 and 8, volunteer to help hang holiday lights from 51st to 87th Streets along historic Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Like their Facebook page or check https://www.formyblock.org/events/ for updates on projects, calls to action, and to learn about volunteering. —Jamie Ramsay from $50 for hoodies (available in English, Spanish and Mandarin), $25 for skullies, at formyblock.org.

4/ Haymarket Books Book Club

If there's a radical or revolutionary on your shopping list, or, at the very least, someone who cares about social and economic justice, odds are they already know about Haymarket Books, the Buena Park-based publisher of Angela Davis, Rebecca Solnit, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Eve Ewing, among many, many others. Membership in Haymarket's book club provides regular monthly shipments of all the publisher's new titles, in either print or e-book format, plus discounts on everything on the backlist. Not only will you provide someone with the foundation of a great personal library, you'll also be supporting a local business. It's a win for everybody. —Aimee Levitt $20-$30/month at haymarketbooks.org.

5/ T-Shirt from the Silver Room

I discovered Silver Room when I first saw Eve Ewing wearing a "Make Chicago Great Again" Harold Washington T-shirt at Pitchfork last year. But the store has a lot more to offer, with shirts by local artists ranging from a profile of Colin Kaepernick made out of tiny red fists to one that looks like a hand-painted bodega advertisement for Hyde Park. The store is full of hand-crafted leather goods, jewelry, and home decor, many by black makers. —Maya Dukmasova $20-$30 at Silver Room, 1506 E. 53rd St., 773-947-0024, thesilverroom.com.

6/ Rebel Betty Arte prints and zines

Support a Latinx artist this holiday season by buying zines, prints, buttons and other artwork by Rebel Betty, an Afro-Latina artist, DJ, and educator. Her work focuses on raising awareness and creating discussions about gentrification and issues affecting black and brown communities. —Marissa De La Cerda $5-$35 for prints, $5-$15 for zines, $10-$15 for buttons and other items at rebelbettyarte.com.

Good Times

1/ Hollow Leg cocktail class

Contrary to popular belief, Hollow Leg is not a store where you can buy a leg lamp a la A Christmas Story, it's a company that offers mixology classes at various venues around the city. Founded by Devin Kidner, Hollow Leg aims to share the art and science behind crafting cocktails so that anyone who attends their events leaves with the knowledge, taste, and skill to finally make a decent drink—and since they offer plenty of non-alcoholic options, everyone can join in on the fun. You can purchase individual tickets or gift certificates to workshops such as Liquid Confidence: Mixology 101, or book them for a holiday shindig so you can give a whole bunch of your friends the gift that keeps on giving (and giving, and giving . . . depending on who you hang out with). Though most classes are hands-on, they also offer tastings, so you and your guests can just sit back, sip, and learn. The best part might be that they'll play "cocktail whisperer," and tailor the menu for their audience, so if, for example, you hate sugary sweet drinks, you won't have to waste your time—or your booze—mixing one. —Jamie Ludwig $60-$95 for gift certificates at hollowleg.com.

2/ Fat Tiger Workshop hat

Streetwear boutique Fat Tiger Workshop first set up in a small Congress Theater storefront four years ago. Founding designers Vic Lloyd, Desmond Owusu, Terrell Jones, and Joe "Freshgoods" Robinson quickly made the space a home for friends, aspiring artists, and established musicians. One day I wandered in to find Chuck Inglish and Sulaiman filming a music video behind the storefront; on another I bought a Save Money shirt during a pop-up helmed by Joey Purp. Fat Tiger has changed locations twice since then, and the owners still make sure its large West Town headquarters is an open-door community space, even as their individual profiles have risen. Robinson has become a streetwear celebrity since he made a one-off clothing line in homage to our previous president, "Thank U Obama" (Chance the Rapper wore one such hoodie while collecting his first Grammy), and he's since been enlisted to make clothes for the Chicago Bears, McDonald's, and the MCA. All four designers make gear for their individual brands, but they also have a run of Fat Tiger clothes. The simple, bold Fat Tiger hat is a great way to show love for all four of these independent, community-driven designers. —Leor Galil $30 for a signature hat at 836 N. Milwaukee, fattigerworkshop.com.

3/ Custom handmade guitar strap from Souldier

In 2004, Chicago musician Jen Tabor started making instrument straps for her friends, and soon began selling them at shows. Nearly 15 years later, her company Souldier, which specializes in hand-cut leather guitar, bass, and banjo straps, has helped support the instruments of artists such as Jeff Tweedy, Tom Petty, and Kim Gordon, and has practically come to have rock-star status of its own. You can find Souldier straps at a number of instrument shops and other retailers throughout the city, or purchase directly through their website, where there's more fun to be had by customizing a strap of your own. Choose between dozens of color and fabric patterns to match anyone's personality and/or artistic aesthetic. And though Souldier is most known for their instrument accessories, their product line also includes camera straps, headbands, wrist cuffs, dog collars, and more, so there are plenty of gift options for your non-musician human and canine friends. —Jamie Ludwig Prices vary at souldier.us.

4/ Fine Prints cassettes

Chicago's rock scene–if you can say there is one single community–is a lot broader than it often gets credited. Local label Fine Prints gets it. Founded by Robby Haynes (who helps run Hermosa studio Strange Magic Recording) and Ziyad Asrar (of Baby Blue, formerly of Whitney), Fine Prints has put out only a handful of cassette releases, but the small catalog shows how weird and wonderful Chicago rock can get. The label launched in August by releasing tapes from prog misfits Mayor Daley, art punks Wage, and synthpop hypnotists Desert Liminal; in October, Haynes and Asrar dropped the second EP by bedroom-pop wizard Adam Schubert, aka Ruins. The acts Fine Prints have worked with don't overlap stylistically, and that's partly why these four cassettes work well as a single package; they're great individual documents, and all together they unintentionally function as a reminder that there's a lot of great music happening in the city beyond the sounds on these tapes. —Leor Galil $7 per cassette at fineprints.bandcamp.com.

5/ Sharkula T-shirt

Can you really claim to be a Chicagoan if you've never met Sharkula? For the past couple decades, the oddball rapper who also answers to Thigahmahjigggee and Dirty Gilligan has roamed around the city's streets, selling his wares hand-to-hand: usually that means CD-Rs of his unpredictable raps housed in a photocopied sheet of paper littered with his drawings. He recently started making his own T-shirts, and his detailed, gritty graffiti style gives his pieces a lived-in quality. Sharkula designs each shirt by hand and no two are identical, which means this is the most unique gift you can give the Chicago hip-hop fan in your life. And, since buying a shirt requires that you call Sharkula, this also gives anyone who has never met him before the opportunity to finally meet a local legend. —Leor Galil Starting at $30 at 773-647-4995.

6/ Experimental Sound Studio tickets

Experimental Sound Studio, founded in 1986 and based in Edgewater since 2006, is one of the city's great incubators of avant-garde and experimental music. The nonprofit's facility houses a full-service recording studio, of course, as well as a small public gallery that hosts exhibitions, workshops, and other events. ESS also provides a home for the Creative Audio Archive, which it describes as "an invaluable collection of recordings, print, and visual ephemera related to avant-garde and exploratory sound and music"—including a trove of Sun Ra material dating back to the 1950s and thousands of improvised and underground shows captured between 1981 and 2006 by Chicago sound recordist Malachi Ritscher. The concert series that ESS presents in its cozy live room, including Option and Oscillations, feature internationally celebrated Chicagoans—drummer Hamid Drake, sound artist Olivia Block, visionary multi-instrumentalists Ben Lamar Gay and Douglas Ewart—as well as renowned out-of-towners such as trumpeter Greg Kelley, saxophonist Don Dietrich, and pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn. —Philip Montoro $40 for a pack of five tickets good for any concerts, which usually cost $10 apiece—and if you e-mail [email protected] in advance to make a reservation, they'll even get you into one of the handful each year that sell out, 5925 N. Ravenswood, 773-998-1069, ess.org.

7/ Ninja Zombie DVD

In 1992, aspiring writer-director Mark Bessenger and a small crew filmed a low-budget Super-8 horror comedy in Chicago, the exurbs, and Wisconsin. No distributor wanted to touch his movie, Ninja Zombie, though I have a little trouble understanding why; the sight of a green, shirtless zombie adeptly fighting off a small army of ninjas would've sold me in 1992, but I was also seven at the time. Bessenger made a few VHS copies for friends, but the film otherwise disappeared. More than two decades later a copy wound up in the hands of cinema fanatic Zack Carlson, who helps run Bleeding Skull, a site and film distributor that documents obscure horror pictures. In 2014, Carlson brought the VHS to his Bleeding Skull collaborators (writer Annie Choi and site founder Joseph Ziemba, an Illinois native) who were so charmed by the goofy, light-footed picture they decided to find a way to release it. Last month, Bleeding Skull and Austin-based nonprofit the American Genre Film Archive co-released Ninja Zombie on DVD. I just hope with this wide release it may soon become a midnight staple. —Leor Galil $13.99 at americangenrefilm.com/releases/ninja-zombie.

About the artists

To accompany our gift guide, we commissioned two local artists to create the gift wrap featured on our two variant covers. To take full advantage of the festivities, pick up a paper copy of this week's Reader.

Justin Clemons from Chicago Lawn is also the Production Manager at Magnolia Printing. His gift wrap features hands spelling "C-H-I-C-A-G-O" in American Sign Language. The piece started as a hand study he painted at age 17 in the program After School Matters, and his instructor noted that it evoked the feeling of people being deaf to the youth of Chicago and their issues. Years later, Justin completed the painting in acrylics. It was featured in Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition hosted at the Museum of Science+Industry Chicago 2014.

Laura Berger is an artist living in Chicago who paints, sculpts and also animates. Her beautifully minimalistic work often focuses on themes of nature, dreams, or travel. Sometimes, her images feature a host of culturally diverse naked bodies—as appear on one of our variant covers. She is interested in how people create meaning and a sense of belonging to a greater whole.

For more info on Justin's work: justinianart.com. For more info on Laura's work: lauraberger.com. v

Source: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chicago-reader-2018-holiday-gift-guide/Content?oid=63481605

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underabr0kensky · 7 years

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this is fuck-mothering huge

1. If you didn't have to sleep, what would you do with the extra time? My best friend and I talk about this all the time. I’d spend a shitload more time on my hobbies, probably. Literally just write/play guitar/work out all the time. Also probably drink a lot more too, so maybe it’s good that sleep is necessary.

2. What is your favorite piece of clothing you own / owned? I’m actually not sure. I like my band T-shirts, but I don’t think I have a favorite. Maybe my camo pants since they’re actual army fatigues and they’re comfy as fuck and have like four thousand pockets.

3. What hobby would you pick up if time & money weren't an issue? Stunt driving, probably. I’ve been drifting a few times and it’s fun as fuck but I don’t have the car for it. A Solara is not meant to do that shit.

4. What does your perfect room look like? Something with a big ass window overlooking a forest that I can shut with panels so my room is completely dark, and one of those crazy fucking beds that has a TV built into it. Also shitloads of band and boxing posters and a metric fuck-ton of anime figures and dragon statues and other such nerdy shit in a display case. Also a cat somewhere, and my girlfriend curled up next to me.

5. How often do you play sports? I don’t. I’m not really into sports at all, except for boxing and some football.

6. What fictional place would you like to visit? There are many. Hogwarts/Hogsmeade, Cairhien, Misaki Town, Fuyuki City, Aincrad, Akihabara (the one from Log Horizon, I know that’s actually a real city as well you smartass), literally anywhere in the Dragon Universe, Destiny Islands, Hollow Bastion, there are so fucking many.

7. What job would you be terrible at? Anything that involves a lot of pressure. I like cooking, but I could never work as a chef. The stress would crack me instantly.

8. When was the last time you climbed a tree? When I was a kid. I used to do that a lot actually. There’s a big fuckhuge maple tree my dad planted at the house we used to live in back before I was born, and it’s massive now.

9. If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would you have a good chance of winning a medal for? Playing Dark Souls. I’d win gold, silver, and bronze. GITGUD.

10. What is the most annoying habit that you or other people have? I do that leg bouncing thing all the time, it pisses people off.

11. What job do you think you'd be really good at? Honestly I think I’d be a good therapist. I’m a fucked up person so I understand where most people are coming from, I love making people feel better, and I’m not one to think someone else’s feelings aren’t valid just because someone somewhere has it worse.

12. What skill would you like to master? Guitar. I know I’m good, but I’m nowhere near a master.

13. What would be the most amazing adventure to go on? Anything involving hikes in places like those you see on the crazy nature pictures on here. Those things make me hate living in shitty Tennessee.

14. If you had unlimited funds to build a house to live on for the rest of your life, what would the finished house look like? Probably two floors and a basement, Victorian style, somewhere surrounded by wilderness. A garage, a storm cellar, I’m not gonna sit here and describe the interior but it would be fancy but not stuffy or pretentious, just obviously very well-to-do. I like nice things, sue me.

15. What's your favorite drink? Lemonade. Also Mountain Dew.

16. What state or country do you never want to go back to? Mississippi. Why the fuck is the spelling so retarded, for one. That place isn’t even a state, it’s a cess pit. Half the fucking roads don’t have streetlights. I drove for a goddamn hour and didn’t see a Walmart or anything other than an occasional shitty little gas station. Why is it real. I bet they don’t even have running water. Do not fucking go to Mississippi.

17. What songs do you have completely memorized? Shitloads of Metallica songs, also a lot of pop songs because I’m a cuck apparently.

18. What game or movie universe would you like to live in? The Kingdom Hearts universe. Everything is a world. You could go anywhere.

19. What do you consider to be your best find? That’s a weird question. Probably my girlfriend. :P

20. Are you usually early or late? Early because I’m paranoid about showing up late.

21. What pets did you have when you were growing up? Mouse and Alex. My kittehs. I miss them a lot. And random reptiles and amphibians.

22. When people come to you for help, what do they usually need help with? Usually emotional support.

23. What takes up too much of your time? FUCKING WORK.

24. What do you wish you knew more about? A lot of things. The ocean, space, how time works, mythology, physics, dark matter.

25. What would be your first question after waking up from being frozen for 100 years? “Is VR like Sword Art yet?”

26. What are some small things that make your day better? Özge, music, nice weather, and good food.

27. Who's your go-to band or artist when you don't know who or what to listen to? That actually changes a lot. Usually it’s Metallica.

28. What's the best way to start the day? Get up and not wish I hadn’t done that.

29. What TV shows do you like? House M.D., Criminal Minds, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Luther, The Colony, Firefly, Game of Thrones, Dr. Who, general anime.

30. What TV channel doesn't exist but really should? What a fucking weird question. I have no idea. Maybe a channel dedicated to the weekly teaching of guitar techniques or something.

31. Who has impressed you most with what they've accomplished? Özge, definitely, for not drinking. I’m really proud of her.

32. What age do you wish you could stay at permanently? I dunno, maybe 21.

33. What TV show or movie do you refuse to watch? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watched a bit of it and holy fucking god, it sucked. I will never try again.

34. What's your ideal way to spend a weekend? Well I work weekends. But I like chilling with the guys and playing games, getting drunk, and watching movies.

35. What is something that is considered a luxury, but you don't think you could live without? The Internet, but it shouldn’t be considered a luxury. Not having the Internet basically means you’re fucked.

36. What is your claim to fame? Uh. I can play guitar really well? I was the frontman for Distortion Sleep? Some people still recognize us in public, it’s kind of saddening.

37. What is something you enjoy doing the old-fashioned way? Nothing, really. i like convenience.

38. What's your favorite book or movie genre? Horror, I believe. Or drama. Or fantasy.

39. How often do you people-watch? Not very often. I don’t like people.

40. What have you only recently formed an opinion about? I can’t think of anything. Islam, perhaps.

41. What's the best day of the year? Whatever day is the first day of a long vacation.

42. What subject interests you that not many people have heard of? Dark matter.

43. How do you relax after a long day of work? With a drink or by working out.

44. What's the best book series or TV series you've ever read or watched? Best book series is Wheel of Time.

45. Where is the farthest you've ever been from home? Probably when I was in Manhattan or San Diego.

46. What's the most heartwarming thing you've ever seen? Some of the stuff I’ve seen on here is pretty heartwarming. The little kid giving the toy garbage truck to the garbage guys was adorable.

47. What is the most annoying question people ask you? “What aisle is the bread on?” I dunno maybe the fucking aisle that says “BREAD” you piece of shit

48. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with no preparation? Guitar. I could babble about that shit for hours.

49. If you were the dictator on a small island nation, what crazy dictator stuff would you do? Ban fedoras. Make everyone own a cat. Make one person at random per week submit their cat to me for a 24-hour checkup that is really just me cuddling and playing with the cat. Make Mountain Dew a fundamental human right. Homophobes shall be met with swift death. Somehow kidnap Trump and lock him in a cage. Flog him whenever people get bored, angry, hungry, or if they just want to.

50. What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives? Eat authentic Italian food. Like in a restaurant where the chefs are people who immigrated from Italy. That shit is dope.

51. Would you rather go hand gliding or whitewater rafting? That’s tough, but hang gliding. I like the sky.

52. What's your dream car? A Lamborghini Diablo SE-30.

53. What's worth spending more on to get the best? Food.

54. What is something a ton of people are obsessed with, but you just don't get? Supernatural. I think that show is a piece of shit with some of the worst acting and dialogue I’ve ever seen.

55. What are you most looking forward to in the next 10 years? Moving away from here, hopefully getting a place with her, hopefully being financially stable.

56. Where is the most interesting place you've been? South Dakota. Going to the north during winter was an experience.

57. What's something you've been meaning to try but haven't gotten around to it? Acid. no seriously, I want to trip balls.

58. What is the best thing that happened to you last week? I went to MTAC.

59. What piece of entertainment do you wish you could erase from your mind, only to experience it for the first time again? My friend and I talk about this all the time. The first time we heard “Disconnected” by In Flames it was like a fucking epiphany. I’d like to do that again.

60. If all jobs had the same pay rate and hours, what job would you want to have? I’d be a mystery shopper. That’s so trollzy.

61. What amazing thing have you done that no one was around to see? This one time a wasp flew at me while I was holding a stick so I swung the stick at it in a futile attempt to save myself and I just fucking wrecked this thing, the sound of the stick hitting its body was audible. Punk bitch ass wasp didn’t know who he was fucking with.

62. How different was your life 1 year ago? Extremely different, my life 1 year ago was utter shit.

63. What quirks do you have? I fuck with my hair a lot.

64. What would you rate 10/10? My girlfriend. And Italian food.

65. What fad or trend do you think should come back? Nothing I can think of, fads are dumb.

66. What is the most interesting piece of art you've seen? I have no idea. It’s hard to impress me with art because so much of it is bullshit nowadays, somebody just flings paint onto a canvas and calls it art. My friend Lara does some pretty fucking intense stuff though, she’s really talented with dot art.

67. What kind of art do you enjoy most? Anything abstract and weird.

68. What do you hope never changes? The relationship I’m in, unless it changes for the better.

69. What city would you most like to live in? Berlin :D Or San Diego but only if she’s with me.

70. What movie title best describes your life? I dunno, is there a movie called “What the Fuck is Going On?”?

71. Why did you decide to do the work you are doing now? Because I needed money. I hate my job.

72. What's the best way a person can spend their time? Doing stuff they love.

73. If you suddenly became a master at woodworking, what would you make? That would be fucking cool. Probably just random models of stuff I find interesting. Honestly might carve anime figures and sell them.

74. Where is the most relaxing place you've ever been? The ocean. The waves are chill.

75. What's the luckiest thing that has ever happened to you? I met her on here :) And I got pulled up onstage at a Five Finger Death Punch concert.

76. Where would you rather be from? Germany.

77. What are some things you've had to unlearn? I used to have a lisp and I trained myself to get rid of it.

78. What do you look forward to in the next 6 months? Saving money, eventually going to see her. Also the fair.

79. What website do you visit most often? Probably this one.

80. What one thing do you really want but can't afford? A Lambo, a house, a fucking planet ticket to Berlin goddamn it why are they so expensive fuck god

81. Where do you usually go when you have free time? My room. My cave. My fortress of solitude.

82. Where would you spend all your time if you could? In Germany with her.

83. What's special about the place you grew up? Honestly fucking nothing. Lebanon sucks, there’s nothing there and all the people are shit.

84. What age do you want to live to? I’d like to live to like 400 just to see where the world goes. If it goes south I can just eat a bullet.

85. What are you most likely to become famous for? Music, I hope.

86. What are you absolutely determined to do? Visit Germany.

87. What is the most impressive thing you know how to do? Play guitar really well. Also beat Through the Fire and Flames on expert.

88. What do you wish you knew more about? You asked me this already you insensitive bastard

89. What question would you most like to know the answer to? What the fuck is all of this shit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsAg8MzwM9A

90. What question can you ask to find out the most about a person? Ask how they view other people I suppose.

91. When was the last time you changed your opinion or belief about something major? Probably about Özge explained a lot of stuff about Islam to me.

92. What's the best compliment you've ever received? I love being called “handsome”. It’s such an underappreciated and underused compliment.

93. As the only human left on earth, what would you do? Get really drunk and then end myself. Seriously that would fucking suck.

94. Who inspires you to be better? My girlfriend. I’ve gotten a lot better because of how supportive she is.

95. What do you want your epitaph to be? “One more shot won’t kill me” but only if one more did indeed kill me.

96. What haven't you grown out of? Anime and stuffed animals.

97. In what situation or place would you feel most out of place in? Church. Anytime I go to a church I feel fucking awkward.

98. What's the dumbest thing you've done that actually turned out pretty well? Well my best friend and I bought a bus and defaulted on our lease to live on it. That was fucking stupid, but it taught me a lot of things.

99. If someone wrote a book on an event in your life, what would the book be about? The bus incident. We’ve actually talked about writing a book about it because of what a fucking fiasco it was to even get the thing.

100. What's something you will never do again? Buy a fucking bus. And ruin my relationship.

101. How do you hope you'll change as a person in the future? Hopefully I won’t drink so much and I won’t be so insecure.

102. What keeps you up at night? Stress, usually.

103. What's the most surprising self-realization you've had? “Holy fuck, I was emotionally abused and then I emotionally abused someone.” And then I started drinking too much.

104. What is the most illegal thing you've ever done? Many things. Probably shoplifting, I used to do that fairly frequently because I was a stupid kid.

105. How do you get in the way of your own success? By being too insecure to try.

106. What are you afraid people see when they look at you? My stupid fucking smile, ugh.

107. What is your biggest regret? Fucking things up with her, but I did it and I can’t change it, I just need to not do it to anyone else.

108. What do you look down on people for? Being homophobic or bigoted in any other way.

109. What bridges do you not regret burning? There aren’t many. I suck at letting people go.

110. What lie do you tell most often? “I’m sick”

111. What would be your spirit animal? A cat, I bet.

112. What is the best & worst thing about getting older? You stop being stupid, but you start needing to watch what you eat.

113. What are you most likely very wrong about? Nothing. I know everything. I am never wrong. If you disagree, you prove your incompetence. Bow to me, mortal.

114. If you had a personal flag, what would be on it? A weird cube shape that we used to use for Distortion Sleep.

115. What's happened that changed your view on the world? Well we elected Trump as president so I think we’re all fucked.

116. What is the biggest lesson you've learned? Don’t let insecurity make you an asshole.

117. What is the most immature thing you do? I dunno, skip work?

118. What are you famous for among your friends & family? My guitar and singing skillz yo.

119. If your childhood had a smell, what would it be? Peanut butter and jelly.

120. What one responsibility do you wish you didn't have? Having a fucking job.

121. What are 3 things you want to accomplish before you die? Visit a bunch of different places, make a career out of music, beat the dogshit out of a rapist.

122. What do you want to tell your 10-year-old self? “Start playing guitar you stupid fuck”

123. What's the best thing you got from your parents? My musical ability.

124. What's the best thing about you? I’m compassionate I suppose.

125. What blows your mind? Space and the ocean. Dude that shit is cray cray.

126. Have you ever saved someone's life? Yeah, I have.

127. What are you really good at but embarrassed to be good at? I’m not embarrassed to be good at anything.

128. What would a mirror opposite of you look like? Someone who isn’t sexy as fuck.

129. What are 3 interesting facts about you? I can curl my tongue, I talked to Arnold Schwarzenegger on the phone once, and I hit a golf ball so hard it exploded.

130. Which of your scars has the best story behind it? I have a big scar on my right hand from when I jumped down off my bed and my hand came down on my guitar’s head stock. It almost punched through the back of my hand and it was so painful I almost blacked out. I had stitches for like two months. Holy fuck it was so shitty.

131. What's the title of the current chapter in your life? “Recovery”

132. What were some of the biggest turning points in your life? Dropping out of college, starting the first band, meeting Jessica, meeting Özge.

133. What's the hardest lesson you've learned? Sometimes if you fuck something up badly enough, it can’t ever be fixed, even if both people forgive each other.

134. What do people think is weird about you? I slouch really badly.

135. What mistake do you keep making? I drink too much.

136. What have you created that you're most proud of? I wrote a song called “Alone Sleep Ghosts” that is better than anything I’ve ever written and it will probably never be topped.

137. What do you doubt? Myself, all the time.

138. What are some of your morals? Don’t be a bigoted fuckhole.

139. What do you want to be remembered for? My music and my compassion.

140. What do you regret not doing in your childhood years? Picking up guitar earlier.

141. What is your favorite fragrance? Flowery perfumes. Also cooking food.

142. What do you think your last words will be? “Is Tsukihime 2 out yet?”

143. Who or what do you take for granted? I try not to take anything for granted, but most modern conveniences.

144. Why would you be annoying as a roommate? Not at all because I’d stay in my room constantly.

145. What is something you're insecure about? Being replaced.

146. What's the best & worst piece of advice you've received? Best: Don’t let your insecurities ruin your life. Worst: Just do what you love, don’t worry about how much money it makes you.

147. What irrational fears do you have? Spiders, broken glass, needles, and being hurt emotionally.

148. What makes a good life? Being with someone you love and being financially stable.

149. What's the last adventure you went on? We traveled to Georgia for a LARP last year.

150. What is the most memorable gift you've received? The cards that Jess sent me.

#personal #survey #about me #get to know me #this is long

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